


Malfunction

by harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: POV Second Person, don't piss off the AI system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 01:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/pseuds/harpers_mirror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hilbert learns the consequences of pissing off the woman who makes his oxygen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malfunction

The lights flicker. Go out briefly, sputter back to life, then fail entirely. You sigh and pay them no mind.

\------

Your study of Eiffel’s discoveries is interrupted periodically by almost comically loud and ominous creaks and groans from the hull of the Hephaestus. With a roll of your eyes, you keep working.

\------------

Something hisses from the air vents. The first few days, this would have made you jump for fear that you were being gassed, to sleep or to death. Now you barely glance away from the panorama of space before you. 

When the in-rushing air cuts off, it sounds almost _sullen._

\---------------------

You can’t remember the last time you got a good night’s sleep. Bored with simply waking you at any old time of night, it would seem that Hera has developed the uncanny ability to sound alarms, flash the lights, or blast choice selections of Eiffel’s loudest and most annoying music through the speakers _right_ as you are falling asleep. If you manage to actually get to sleep anyway, she repeats these tactics when you are most deeply asleep, ensuring that you are so startled, so disoriented that you flail around in bed and she can get in a good long laugh at you.

You’re pretty sure she must be monitoring your vital signs to do this with such unflinching accuracy, and wonder what other torments she might devise with such information.

\---------------------------------------

It comes to a head. Hera pulls out all the stops, treating you to a cacophony of hissing “gas,” creaking hull, temperature drops, ear-splitting music, and, you suspect, a reduction of breathable air in the observation deck but you refuse to give her the satisfaction of a conscious reaction. Stoically you sit and stare out the window, refusing to shiver, refusing to cover your ears, to close your eyes, to even look around - until, all at once, it stops as the Commander enters to badger you once more.

Ears ringing slightly, and despite rising irritation at Minkowski’s inane and repetitious questioning, you feel a slight surge of triumph and turn from the window at last. _“Ha! Finally discovered you can’t break me so easily, you foolish, petty little -”_

You see _her_ standing in the doorway.

_“Oh.”_

Numbly, you consider that maybe Hera’s tactics were more effective than you'd given her credit for. Or rather, you _hope_ this is true, because the alternative doesn't bear consideration.

The alternative is that a ghost just walked through your prison door and now you have your own special hell to pay.


End file.
